


The monsters under your bed

by fowo



Series: The Uncle-verse [2]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003)
Genre: (he's trying his best), Family Feels, Gen, Questionable Parenting Methods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27574568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fowo/pseuds/fowo
Summary: Raph's way to alleviate his little niece's fears might be unconventional, but they work.
Series: The Uncle-verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015585
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	The monsters under your bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HamsterMasterSamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HamsterMasterSamster/gifts).



> Happy birthday! <3
> 
> And just because I can, i'm loosely basing this on the last thing I wrote, which already was roughly set in the [RP-verse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263449/chapters/66605860) we're writing.

Saving the world against an alien invasion was one thing. But what could a ninja do about politics?

By late evening, there was no mistaking it: Oroku Saki was New York's new senator. Four turtles and two humans were sitting in stony silence around the Jones's TV, beverages and snacks forgotten.

"Maybe Donnie can hack the results and just change a few numbers," said Michelangelo into the stony silence. 

"I should," said Donnie, shaking his head a little. He had his laptop on his knees and was checking the internet simultaneously to the news on TV. "But I think his resources are better than mine."

"Stockman and Chaplin have nothing on you, Don, don't sell yourself short," said Leo, sounding completely level and even in a way he only did when he was forcibly holding himself back. 

Everyone lapsed into another round of silence as they watched the people on television talk about the election and what a great change for the city Oraku Saki would be. Yes, he was a businessman and no politician, but wasn't that a good thing? Finally someone who was not afraid to say what he thought, and who had the experience of leading.

The tense silence was only broken when April checked the time.

"I'm sending Shadow to bed," she said with a sigh as she rose to her feet. The adults had sent the girl into her room to play a while ago. 

"Thanks babe," said Casey, reaching out to take her hand and put a gentle kiss to her knuckles as she walked past him.

"Don't call me babe," she said with a smile; an age-old adage. 

"Alright, babe," he said, and she tugged his hair in retaliation as she left.

"This sucks," Raphael said when April had disappeared around the corner. He reached for another beer and uncapped it. "'s there really nothin' we can do?"

"Yeah, can't we start a coup or something?" asked Mikey. "Didn't ninjas use to assassinate people and stuff?"

"And, what, we kill him?" asked Leo darkly. "Is that what you're proposing?"

Mike shrugged sheepishly, looking at Donatello for guidance, but the braniac was typing away on his laptop with little regard to what the conversation around him was about.

"We _should_ ," Casey said, smacking his fist into the opposing palm. "Just straight up finish him off."

"We _won't_ ," said Leonardo, just in case someone was actually unclear about where they stood morally. "As much as we dislike it, he got elected by the majority. There's little we can do right now."

"People wouldn't'a elected him if they knew he was a stinkin' _utom_!" Raphael said heatedly.

"Easy, Raph," said Donatello, selective hearing kicking in even though he didn't even bother looking up. "Lots of these 'stinking utroms’ are our friends."

Raph harrumphed and sank back into his seat, nursing his beer. He and Casey shared a silent look but they kept their thoughts to themselves. 

The sound of small feet stomping and skipping down the hallway redirected everyone’s attention. Shadow Jones burst into the living room like the force of nature she was and the bunny print pajamas she wore did nothing to dull her impact.

"I brushed my teeth!" she announced. 

"Ohh, good job," Mikey praised, opening his arms for her to climb in. He pressed a big smooch on her cheek and she giggled, hugging her small arms around his neck.

"G'night Unca Mikey," she said dutifully.

"Good night, Baby Shadow," he said and released her so she could hop from his lap and go on to the next uncle.

Everyone got a quick hug. She was old enough now to understand that the turtles were different, and it was very important to her that they knew she loved them doubly as much to make up for all the love they didn't get from others. Compared to them, her parents were practically ostracized.

Raph was last in the hug chain.

He already opened his arms to accept her love dutifully, but she hesitated.

His hands sank. "What?" he asked, insecure about the sudden rejection.

"Uhm," said Shadow, looking back to her mother. "I want Unca Raph to read."

"What?" asked Raph again, immediately hating how everyone's attention was now on him. Usually Shadow's parents read her her bedtime story, or if it was one of the turtles, it was usually Mikey or Leo. Mikey did the best voices, and Leo had the patience of a saint and would read book after book after book until she fell asleep. 

"Well," said April, hands on her hips and a smile on her lips, "you'll have to ask him, sweetie, not me."

Shadow was obviously a little embarrassed and fidgeted for a moment and then made a dash for her mother's legs to put her face against her thigh to hide it. April tried very hard not to laugh, because her daughter and her most surly uncle already had so much in common. ‘Oh no, emotions!’

Shadow was clearly not getting the words out, so April stroked her hair gently and raised her eyes to Raph. "Well, would you read her a story?"

"Uh," said Raph dumbly. "Can I do that?"

"Can you read?" asked April with a chuckle, and Raph nodded a little. "Well, that's really the only requirement. Off you go."

Shadow made a dash to her room without looking back, and Raphael slowly rose to his feet, carefully casting a look around to his family surrounding him, only met with encouraging gestures and murmurs.

Raph followed his niece at a slower pace through the hallway and stopped in front of her open door. He peeked into the little girl's room.

It felt a bit alien; there was so little to relate to. She had posters on the walls from kid's shows he didn't recognize, her sheets were pink, and even though he appreciated the array of turtle plushies that had conveniently color-coded scrunchies wrapped around their heads for masks, very little of her room was like his had been.

She had no three brothers to share with. There was no bunk bed, no naked tunnel walls, no pipes overhead. Her door closed if she wanted it to. She had a night light that bathed her room in soft yellow glow. Her mosquito net was blue, and little plush stars were sewn into the fabric to make a night sky.

They had very different childhoods, he and his niece.

Shadow was sitting up in her tiny bed under her giant covers, her book in her lap and looking at him expectantly. 

"Uh," he said, unsure of himself. "What do I do?"

"You sit and read," Shadow instructed wisely. "It's not hard. A baby could do it."

"A baby, huh?" said Raph with a bit of a smirk. "If you ain't a baby, then what're you?"

"I'm _not_ a baby," said Shadow with some irritation. "I'm five!"

"Right, 'course," Raph said with a huff. Being five very clearly meant being very mature and not a baby at all. 

He eyed Shadow's little bed, not sure if it would hold his weight. He sat down gingerly, but the bed turned out to be surprisingly sturdy and didn't even creak. Shadow handed him her book very seriously but upside down, and Raph flipped it over to look at the cover. He paused a moment.

"'We're getting a baby?'" he read, not without apprehension.

"Mhm," said Shadow.

"Uh," said Raph, opening the book to the first page. There wasn't much text; most of the page was taken up by bright and colorful illustrations. The font was quite big, too. Raph blinked at the text, feeling like he was reading it while simultaneously his brain vacated the building by jumping out the window. 

"'Laura skipped down the stairs,'" he read slowly, "'alerting all the neighbors of the good news: We are getting a baby! Laura was very excited. But it would take some more time until her little sibling arrived. The baby was still very small--'" Raph cleared his throat, "'--in her mother's belly.'" He looked up. "Shadow--"

"Read," she insisted without taking her eyes off the cheerful illustrations of Laura and her parents. 

"Ugh," said Raph but he raised the book again, uncomfortably squinting at the text. He figured he was a master ninja, he could get through a book about human pregnancy. Besides, it was framed for kids, so it wasn't graphic or anything. Even the illustration of the x-ray view into the mother's belly was far from accurate. Didn’t hav’ta be Donnie to know that.

April had explained it to him; little kids' obsession with babies, why Shadow played mommy for her baby doll despite being pretty much a baby still herself. 

Raph had nodded like her explanation meant anything to him, and left it at that.

Shadow, as it were, listened attentively when he continued reading, half-climbed into his lap and half-draped over his forearms to look at the pictures. 

When Raph ( _finally_ ) finished reading, she smiled at him, leaning back in her pillows. He huffed and put the book aside.

"A'right, gremlin," he said, relieved to be done. "Sleepy time now."

Shadow let herself be tucked in by him, and he ruffled her hair one last time, but she reached out before he could withdraw and held one of his fingers in her hand.

"Unca Raph?" she asked, her voice hushed. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He frowned, but nodded earnestly. "Yeah," he said, voice lowered to match her secretive whisper. "What is it?"

Shadow's little brow furrowed very seriously. "There's a monster under my bed," she told him.

Raph blinked. Whatever he had expected, it wasn't that.

"Mommy and Daddy don't believe me," Shadow added. "Because it only comes out at night when they're not there."

She was still holding his finger. Raph slowly moved his hand so that he was holding her hand in his. He knew this spiel. Mikey had been afraid of monsters and the dark way into his teens, and Raph had always made fun of him. Then monsters had become real and Raph had never really quite felt like making fun of him again. Monsters under the bed were a real possibility, and no joke. 

"You want me to check?" he asked his baby niece.

Shadow nodded, and Raph huffed a breath through his nose, slid from the bed right onto his knees and bent down to peek under the bed. 

There was a box of legos and a jigsaw puzzle and some toy blocks and some dust bunnies and that was it.

Raph lifted his gaze, seeing that Shadow had joined him in peeking under the bed upside down.

"It's gone," Raph told her. "No monster."

"You scared him off," Shadow whispered. 

"Me?" Raph scoffed. "No way. I didn't do anythin'. _You_ scared him off."

"What?" asked Shadow incredulously, sitting back up on the bed.

"Yeah," said Raph and rose back to his feet to sit down with her again. "Because you were so courageous and looked if he was there."

Shadow stared at him, smoothing out her hair with her hands.

"Yeah," Raph insisted. "He thought ya was a little scaredycat but you ain't. You checked if he was gonna be a big scary monster and eat you, and he couldn't own up to it."

"That's not how that works," said Shadow, like monsters under the bed had rules to adhere to. But she seemed overwhelmed with having this conversation in the first place. She fidgeted uneasily, grabbing the closest turtle-plush (with a purple scrunchie) and hugged it to her chest, thinking hard.

Raph was uncomfortable enough to think he must've screwed up with his easy explanation why there was no monster under her bed, and thought it was probably a good idea to get one of her parents to take over and undo the damage he'd done, but when he moved to rise, she shuffled closer to him again.

"Unca Raph," she said, "are monsters real?"

That one at least had an easy answer. 

"I'm real, ain't I?" asked Raph with a scoff, but Shadow frowned.

"You're not a monster, you're my _uncle_ ," she said because clearly, he was being ridiculous. 

"Lotsa people would disagree, kid," Raph told her. "The secret is to be the scariest thing in the room so everyone is afraid of _you_ and you have nobody to be afraid of yourself. Make 'em shake in their boots when they see you. _You_ hide under _their_ bed and tell _them_ you're gonna eat 'em."

That made her giggle. 

Making Shadow laugh was a win in Raph's book, and he grinned wryly at her and gave her hair another ruffle. "A'right gremlin," he said when she shooed him off and combed her hair back down with her hands. "When that big ol' monster creeps up on ya and tries to scare ya, what do you do?"

Shadow gnarled her fingers in a very small claw and grimaced. "Rar!" she said, very dangerously.

"Attagirl," said Raph smugly. "Now sleep."

And he pulled the door behind him ajar, keeping it open so the light from the living room would fall into Shadow's room through a gap, because a little light always helped against monsters.

  
  
  



End file.
